The Chronicles of the Sole Survivor
by 1991Kira
Summary: Series of one-shots set in my AU, where Garrus Vakarian is the sole survivor of the Akuze massacre. Rated M for language.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is a series of one-shots set in an AU Mass Effect, where Garrus is the sole survivor of the Akuze massacre.**

 **One of the things that's always bothered me in ME is why Cerberus, a _pro-human_ organization, would set up _human_ soldiers to be attacked by the maws. If they really wanted to test the effect of the venom on living tissue, they could've experimented on other races, like the turians, especially given that Jack Harper aka TIM has a history with them. It'd be much easier to sell the whole "Humanity first" motto when you're not feeding your own species to giant worms.  
**

 **Either way, it would've been nice to see some kind of resolution for this plotline in ME2 or ME3, especially since it concerns Sole Survivor Shepard directly.**

 **Anyways, thought I'd play around with this idea for a while, see where it goes. Lemme know what you think, people :)**

* * *

"Stay back! I've got no grief with you! All I want is this bastard!"

Shepard and her companions slowly filed into the room, guns trained on the only two people in the room. One of them was a human, dressed in a standard lab researcher uniform. The other, the one who just spoke, was a turian dressed in a battered looking mercenary uniform, brandishing a gun at the terrified human.

"Please!" the human whimpered. "He's a madman! He's insane! Mr Sidonis, please, you're sick. You need help!"

"Shut up!" the turian bellowed. "You don't get to lie! You don't..."

"Sidonis?"

Shepard glanced sideways to see Garrus slowly step forward. "Lantar...Sidonis?" he asked slowly, as though unable to believe his eyes.

"Who are you?" the turian merc bristled, his gun still trained on the scientist. "How do you know my name?"

"Sidonis, it's me!" Ignoring Ashley's cry of _"What the hell, Vakarian?"_ Garrus stepped forward, lowering his rifle and slowly removing his helmet. "It's me! Garrus!"

"Garrus?" the turian blinked slowly, as if he were in a daze. "Garrus Vakarian? Spirits, Garrus, is that really you?"

"It's me, Sidonis. It really is me!" He glanced furtively at Shepard, silently beseeching her for help. She got the hint and lowered her own weapon, signalling the others to do the same.

"Sidonis...Lantar, what's going on? I saw you go down on Akuze. I saw the Thresher maw pull you under! How did you get here?"

All the fight seemed to go out of Sidonis at these words. His shoulders slumped slightly and his gun wavered.

"It was a trap, Garrus. It was all a trap!" the anguish in his voice was unmistakeable. "These scientists set us up. They wanted to study the Thresher maws, so they led our squad there. They..."

"He's lying!" the scientist shrieked in panic. "He's got no proof!" He turned to Shepard desperately. "Listen, Commander! My name is Dr. Wayne. I swear to you this turian is crazy! He's..."

"Shut up!" Sidonis bellowed. "You're calling _me_ crazy, you scum! I'll..."

"Lantar! Lantar, ignore him! Look at me, please. Talk to me." Garrus stepped forward, his hands held out placatingly. Even though Shepard was no expert in reading turian expressions, she could tell from the twitching of his mandibles that he was barely holding onto his own anger, doing his best to stay calm for the other turian's sake.

Sidonis seemed to cool down slightly. "These bastards set us up, Garrus. See, they were running tests on the maws. They wanted to study the effects of thresher maw venom on turian physiology. So they faked that distress signal and lured us there. They _let_ those things hit us just to watch and study!"

Garrus' entire world seemed to collapse around him. He actually staggered back a couple of steps, as though this information about his past had hit him like a physical blow. Shepard moved forward slightly to support him in case his legs gave out. The rest of the team opted to look at the terrified looking Dr Wayne with a mixture of horror and disgust.

Everyone on the Normandy knew about the incident at Akuze. It was a rather painful subject for the usually wise-cracking turian C-Sec officer.

Six years ago, Garrus' team had responded to a turian distress signal from the mostly deserted human colony of Akuze, on the outskirts of Systems Alliance space. Worried that there might be a remnant of the First Contact War on the colony, and determined not to cause a resurgence of past hostilities with the humans, the Turian Hierarchy sent in a team of twenty Special Forces soldiers to investigate.

When the team arrived at the colony, they only found the mostly intact settlement and no survivors, human or turian. As they camped for the night, they were set upon by thresher maws. They'd also found that their equipment had mysteriously been sabotaged, and very powerful signal jammers were blocking out their own distress calls.

By the time the Hierarchy realized that something was wrong, and requested the Alliance to send in aid, most of the unit had been slaughtered by the maws. When Alliance rescue ships finally arrived at the scene, they found only a single turian officer still alive: Second Lieutenant Garrus Vakarian.

The Akuze massacre became famous for nearly causing a diplomatic incident between the Alliance and the Hierarchy, but the intervention of the Council prevented things from escalating further. It helped that even the Alliance had found Garrus Vakarian's resilience rather admirable, seeing as he'd survived things that would have broken a lesser soldier. The Hierarchy had even gone as far as to offer him a shot at the Spectres.

But Garrus had turned down all offers and all accolades. He'd quit the turian military and moved to the Citadel to follow in his father's footsteps as an officer for Citadel Security. He had practically resigned himself to a life of bureaucracy and red tape, but a chance meeting with Commander Shepard gave him an opportunity to once again fight the good fight, this time against rogue Spectre Saren Arterius.

Watching Garrus learn that the darkest chapter of his life had, in fact, been a part of some sick experiment was incredibly painful to watch.

But Sidonis wasn't done yet.

"I woke up in a holding cell. The scientists were _delighted_ I survived." He glared venomously at Wayne. "Now they had someone to run their _tests_ on."

"They tortured me, Garrus!" the pain in his voice was heart-rending. "Night and day they tortured me. They injected me with thresher maw venom. I kept begging them to stop but they simply laughed at me. The pain was so unbearable!" His sub-vocals trilled with grief and pain.

"I didn't know..." Garrus whispered. "Lantar, I...I swear. If I'd known...I..."

"You can't believe what he says!" Wayne screeched. "He has no proof! I _demand_ a fair trial!"

"Shut up!" Sidonis screamed. "You can't believe what he says! He was _there_!"

"Sidonis," Shepard said cautiously. "Do you know who these people are? The ones who did this to you?"

Sidonis looked at her cautiously. "They're part of some organization, go by the name 'Cerberus'. They run secret tests like this. They treated me like some kind of lab animal."

He looked at Garrus again. "This man deserves to die, Garrus! For you, for me, for everyone else in the unit!"

Garrus looked at him for a moment before nodding jerkily. "Agreed." He slowly drew his own pistol and pointed it at Wayne.

"Garrus, wait!" Shepard stepped forward. "You mustn't do this!"

Garrus looked at her as though she were insane. "Shepard, you heard what this man did. He's responsible for the deaths of our entire team. He deserves to die!"

"I'm not saying he doesn't!" Shepard said quickly, aware of two incredibly incensed turians. "I'm saying we need evidence..."

"Are you calling me a liar, _human_?" Sidonis spat at her.

"No, I'm not. Sidonis, I _believe_ you! But he needs to stand trial for his crimes. What will killing him here achieve?"

"You humans have a saying: 'An eye for an eye, a life for a life.'" Sidonis glared at Wayne hatefully. "He owes me eighteen lives! And I plan to collect!"

"Sidonis, wait!" Shepard turned desperately to Garrus. "You have to stop him."

"Why, Shepard?" Garrus snarled at her. "Give me _one_ good reason!"

She grabbed his arm and pulled him closer. "Wayne is merely a pawn. The real culprit over here is these 'Cerberus'; and if Wayne dies here, we'll never be able to bring the people behind Cerberus to justice."

"The Alliance can still investigate," Garrus said stubbornly. "Sidonis' testimony..."

"Means nothing!" Shepard whispered fiercely. "Anyone can see that he's not completely mentally stable. If he kills Wayne, all the Alliance will see is a crazed turian who went on a killing spree. This'll all be swept under the rug and your men will never get the justice they deserve!"

She could see her words beginning to have an effect on Garrus. Being a former detective himself, he knew how these things work. She watched him take a deep breath and turn around to face Sidonis once again.

"Well, Garrus?" he barked impatiently. "Are you with me on this?"

"Shepard's right, Lantar," Garrus said soothingly. "We've got to arrest him. Make him..."

"Screw you, Garrus!" he snarled. "You're supposed to be on _my_ side!"

"I _am_ on your side, Lantar. I want this bastard to die just as much as you do! But not like this! Lantar, you're better than this….."

"Don't tell _me_ who I am, Vakarian!" Sidonis bellowed. " _You_ got away with a few scratches and a scary reputation. The rest of the unit _died_ and I was tortured for _years_!"

"You can't judge me, Garrus! You don't have the _right_!"

"Sidonis...Lantar, please," Garrus begged. "If I could have helped you on Akuze, I would have. Spirits, if I'd known you were alive, I wouldn't have let anything stop me from rescuing you."

"All I can do is help you _now_. Let me, Lantar. _Please_."

For an entire minute Sidonis just stood there, hateful eyes boring into Wayne's. Finally, he sighed in resignation and let his gun drop to his side.

"Okay. Okay," he muttered, more to himself than to the others. "I'm no murderer. They couldn't make me one." He looked up at Garrus pleadingly. "Just as long as he goes to trial. Maybe the screaming will stop now. I don't know."

He hung his head in sorrow, and Garrus finally moved forward to wrap his arms around the younger turian. "It's alright, Lantar. Those bastards can't hurt you anymore. I won't let them."

Shepard sighed in relief, glad that the situation was resolved without any bloodshed.

Until Wayne opened his stupid mouth, of course.

"Thanks a lot, Commander! I'm glad you were here. This crazy animal would have killed me otherwise!" He shook his head. "Turians I tell you, they're no better than..."

Whatever else he was about to say was lost as, with an enraged snarl, Garrus rushed forward and landed a vicious right hook across his jaw. There was a loud, resounding crack and several white teeth flew out as he slammed into the nearby wall.

"Garrus!" Shepard moved forward. "Control yourself! Please!"

She glanced pointedly Sidonis, staring morosely at the floor. Thankfully, Garrus got the hint as he stepped back to the younger turian's side, breathing deeply in anger.

"He hit me!" Wayne spat fearfully from his position on the floor. His jaw was a mess, his teeth continuing to fly out as he spoke. "Commander, I demand..."

"Shut up!" Shepard barked at him, pulling out her pistol. "One more word out of you, and I swear..."

Thankfully, the stupid bastard got the message and shut up immediately. After ordering Ashley to handcuff him, Shepard hailed the Normandy. "Joker! Tell the fifth fleet we need a ship for pickup."

She sighed as she looked at Garrus, talking softly to a dejected looking Sidonis. She knew they both had wounds which would take a long time to heal. She could only pray that it would happen soon.


	2. Chapter 2

The three humans walked quietly into the non-descript looking building.

This was the place, the spot where Aria T'Loak, the ruler of Omega, had told them to report to. The meeting had been arranged through her channels when they'd realised that finding their target using standard Cerberus intel would be impossible.

No surprise. This was _Archangel_ they were talking about, after all.

Commander Shepard glanced at her omni-tool. They were five minutes early.

In spite of herself, Shepard had to admit she actually looked forward to meeting Archangel in person. The man was something of a legend, not just in Omega, but the Terminus systems as a whole. Not just any ordinary merc leader, he'd made a name for himself in just two years, showing a surgical precision to his operations that would've made an N7 proud. He was a galactic Robin Hood of sorts; the closest thing this lawless land had to a protector of innocents.

The fact that his dossier was right at the top of her list, alongside former STG Dr Mordin Solus, indicated that his reputation wasn't just hot air.

Still, Shepard always believed in seeing things for herself, rather than trusting someone else's opinions blindly.

At the exact time of their meeting, three figures moved out of the shadows and made their way towards Shepard's group.

They were a fairly odd group themselves. The man in the center, wearing cobalt blue armor, was undoubtedly a human. A krogan walked on his right, and on his left was another...wait, was that a _drell_?

Before Shepard could form an opinion on this strange team, they were already within hearing range.

"Archangel?" Shepard asked quietly.

The human stepped forward casually. "Who wants to know?"

Shepard simply cocked an eyebrow and glanced over at Miranda, who had a similar look of disbelief on her face.

 _Just how stupid do these guys think we are?_

"I need to speak to Archangel."

"Well, you're looking at him," the man before her folded his arms and tilted his head at her cockily.

"Cut the crap!" Shepard snapped, losing her patience. "We know Archangel's a _turian_! Now do us all a favor and tell your boss to stop _wasting our time_!"

She made sure to speak the last three words extra loudly, aware that the real Archangel was somewhere nearby, watching their interaction.

The three figures before her stiffened slightly, making her feel almost bad for them. In another time, Shepard would have played along with their game, just for the hell of it. But ever since her resurrection, she'd been running rather low on patience.

"Shepard," Miranda said softly, a hint of warning in her voice. But she didn't really need it.

All around the, various shapes were beginning to show themselves. Two batarians, an asari, a female turian, two other humans...and a volus?

Miranda and Jacob moved closer together, biotics fired up. Shepard clenched her teeth in anger. Had Aria set them up on purpose?

"Stand down."

The voice was soft, but had a firm and commanding tone to it. The unmistakeable figure of a tall, armored turian walked out of the shadows, cradling a Mantis sniper rifle in his hands.

Shepard was actually impressed. _Bastard had a bead on us all along!_

Archangel stopped before her and the two Cerberus Operatives. A single gesture of his arm and everyone on his team had lowered their weapons, but not holstered them ('Smart', Shepard thought). He regarded them carefully for a few moments before he set aside his rifle and slowly removed his helmet.

Shepard felt her heart skip a beat.

"Shepard. I thought you were dead."

"Garrus?" she actually laughed. "Garrus, what the hell are you doing here?"

She spread her arms wide, moving forward to pull her friend into a hug. She honestly couldn't describe the feeling of happiness at the sight of her old comrade.

But her laughter died at the sight of the stiff expression on his face. He hadn't moved forward to greet her, instead he seemed frozen to his spot, as though fighting the urge to step away instead.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I've been better," he flared his mandibles in a tight smile. "Good to see a friendly face here. Killing mercs is hard work."

Shepard grinned at him. "About that, how _did_ you manage to piss off every single merc organization in the Terminus systems?"

He chuckled slightly. "It wasn't easy. I had to work really hard at it. Fortunately, I didn't have to do it completely alone." He gestured to the men around him.

"What're you doing out here on Omega?" she asked curiously.

"I got fed up with all the bureaucratic crap on the Citadel. Figured I could do more good on my own." He seemed slightly more at ease now. "Turns out I'm not the only one who thinks so."

The human behind him, who'd previously been pretending to be Archangel, grunted in agreement. "At least it's not hard to find criminals here. All we gotta do is point our guns and shoot."

A murmur of soft laughter went around at this. Even Shepard smiled, glad to see that the tension was slowly disappearing.

"Since when did you start calling yourself 'Archangel' anyways?" she asked with a smirk.

Garrus actually looked embarrassed. "It's just a name the locals gave me, for all my good deeds. I don't mind it, but please...it's just 'Garrus' to you."

"Always so modest, isn't he?" the asari stage-whispered, eliciting another round of snickers.

Miranda cleared her throat loudly and looked pointedly at Shepard. She grimaced and turned around to face Garrus again, who had also gone back to being all business after throwing his asari subordinate a mild disapproving look.

"I'm putting together a team of sorts to investigate the recent human colony abductions." She decided to cut straight to the point. "We have reason to believe the Collectors are behind it. We're going after them."

"The Collectors?" Garrus looked thoughtful. "Going after them means going through the Omega-4 relay."

"I know. I've been told it's a 'suicide mission'." She smirked at him again. "Course I intend to prove them wrong."

Her smirk faded away when she realized he wasn't smiling. Turian expressions were always hard for her to read, but the way he looked at her, his face may as well have been carved in stone.

"So," she cleared her throat. "You coming along for the ride?" She hoped nobody else could make out the desperate plea in her voice at the end.

He continued to stare at her with that inscrutable expression on his face. "When you said 'we'," he said slowly. "Did you mean the Alliance or the Council?"

Shepard felt her throat clench in despair. This, right here, was the crux of the matter; the reason he was being so cagey. "No...I'm not working for the Alliance or the Council...not right now anyways. It's...complicated..."

"Oh for heaven's sake," Miranda muttered, finally having had enough of the drama. "Commander Shepard's mission is being funded by _Cerberus_!"

 _Damn you, Lawson!_ Shepard heard the tense silence following her pronouncement. She purposefully focused her attention on the turian standing before her, who still hadn't so much as twitched a mandible in surprise.

" _Cerberus_ , Shepard?" he asked her softly. "You're working for _Cerberus_ , now?"

"I'm working _with_ them, Garrus," she corrected. "Not by choice, either. But they're the only ones willing to do anything about it."

"So," he drawled. "You _faked_ your death to go and work for Cerberus, Shepard?"

"I didn't fake anything!" she snarled. Dammit, why was he being such an asshole? Didn't he know her better? "I _was_ dead! Cerberus brought me back to fight against the Reapers!"

He actually laughed at her, a cold hollow laugh that chilled her to the core. "Really, Commander? Is that the best cover story you can come up with? ' _I was dead but I came back_ '?" He shook his head bemusedly. "Just who are you trying to fool over here?"

"I'm not lying!" Shepard was outraged. "You honestly think I would lie about something like this?"

"That's just it, Shepard, I don't _know_ what to think anymore!" he exploded. He paced angrily from side to side. " _Two years_! For _two whole_ years you disappeared, making everyone believe you were dead; and now you turn up at my doorstep, acting like nothing's changed, when you're working with the very same people who killed my team all those years ago?"

She hung her head slightly. She knew Garrus would react like this when she'd mentioned Cerberus, but accusing her of faking her death?

Behind her, Jacob frowned. "Killed his team? What's he talking about?" he directed this to Miranda, who was also deep in thought.

"Bloody hell," she whispered. "Akuze."

"Exactly," Garrus nodded. "I'm glad to see _someone_ within the organization still remembers, Operative Lawson."

"How do you know my name?" Miranda was stunned.

"Oh I know a lot more about Cerberus than most people, Ms Lawson, believe me." He smirked viciously at her. "Operatives Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor. I've been hunting you guys for a while now. I must say you've been rather difficult to get hold of."

"You've been looking for us?" Jacob glared at him heatedly.

"I make it my business to acquaint myself with as many Cerberus operatives as I can." There was an ominous note in his voice, one that sent chills up Shepard's spine.

"It's you!" Miranda gasped. "You're the one who's been attacking our bases for the last two years, killing all our researchers!"

"Very good!" he nodded approvingly at her.

"Do you have any idea of what you've done?" Miranda was incensed. "You've set some of our work back by decades! You've cost us so much in terms of manpower and resources! Do you have any idea how many innocent lives you've taken? How…"

"You misunderstand, Lawson," Garrus said coldly. "It's not that I do not know how much damage I've caused, it's that I do not _care_. As far as I'm concerned, if you choose to wear Cerberus' symbol proudly on your chest, _you are guilty_! And speaking of guilt," he looked at Shepard once again. "Tell me, Shepard, did you really destroy the Normandy SR1 just to keep your cover intact?"

"How dare you!" Shepard shrieked. "You're accusing me of _staging_ the attack on the Normandy!" She couldn't believe her ears. "You really think I'd sink so low? You really think I'd put my crew, my _friends_ in danger like that?"

"Friends?" Garrus snorted disdainfully. "You don't have _friends_ , Shepard. You have _pawns_! That's all the Normandy's crew has ever been to you!"

She felt like he'd just slapped her in the face.

"I've never...I've never used you, Garrus! Any of you!" How could he even think otherwise!

"No? What do you call what you did to Wrex then?"

She felt her stomach churn horribly. Wrex's death on Virmire had been one of her greatest failures. She couldn't believe Garrus was throwing it in her face so casually!

"You know I did my best to talk Wrex down..."

"Save your crap, Shepard," he waved his hand dismissively. "You forget, _I was there_! I _saw_ what you really did! While you distracted Wrex by pretending to talk to him, you had Williams sneak up behind him and blow his brains out!"

"That's not true!" she gasped. "I never...Ashley did that on her own..."

"Oh, save it! You really expect me to believe that a by-the-book marine like Williams would decide to kill Wrex all on her own, risking her CO's wrath? It was a setup, plain and simple." He shook his head in disgust. "You didn't even have the courtesy to do it to his face, did you?"

"I'll be the first to admit, I didn't like Wrex, but I respected the hell out of that old bastard! For him to die like that, shot in the back by a friend...he didn't deserve that, Shepard; and to think he actually respected you..."

"That was the day I realized what kind of a person you really were. That was the day I realized that no matter what we did, we non-humans would never be anything more than _tools_ in your eyes! Tools for you to use and discard as you wished." He glared at her hatefully. "Frankly, I'm not even surprised you ended up in bed with Cerberus!"

"I'm nothing like them!" she spat in anger. "Dammit, Garrus! How can you compare me to...?"

"Why not? You've always chosen human interests over others', haven't you?"

Shepard blinked at him. _What is he...?_

He began pacing again. "You killed Wrex on Virmire because you couldn't control him anymore! You used Ashley Williams to do your dirty work, then left her behind with the salarians to die on Virmire, so that no one would ever find out! You sacrificed the Destiny Ascension so that human casualties would remain at a minimum: _ten thousand_ lives gone so that _your_ kind could rule over the galaxy!"

He snarled hatefully at her. "With such a stellar record, I'm surprised Cerberus didn't recruit you sooner!"

She gaped wordlessly at him. How on earth did he connect those events in his head to form _that_ kind of picture about her? Was _that_ the kind of image she projected to those around her back then, that of a pro-human fanatic? Did her crew, more importantly her _friends_ , really think that little of her?

She'd be the first to admit she had been a little lax back on the first Normandy. At that time, she hadn't tried very hard to discourage the xenophobia that a lot of the human crew openly exhibited against the aliens in the squad. Her own image as an Alliance officer had been too important to her. She didn't want the people around her to start accusing her of being an _alien-lover_ , especially since she'd just recently become a Spectre.

In hindsight, that had definitely been the wrong decision to make. Had she worked harder to quell the paranoia of crew members like Ashley, Wrex wouldn't have had to die on Virmire; and she wouldn't be standing here, listening to one of her closest friends call her a Cerberus lackey.

 _Is this why Cerberus spent billions of credits to bring me back? Did they think I'd readily subscribe to their philosophies, that I already_ _ **was**_ _as anti-alien as them?_

"Garrus, please!" she begged, not knowing what to say anymore. "I'm not Cerberus. I never have been!"

" _That_ , Commander, is something I find rather hard to believe," he said venomously.

"What're you...?"

"Do you remember Dr Wayne, Shepard?"

Shepard came up blank. "Who?"

" _Dr Wayne?_ The scientist we picked up on Ontarom, along with Lantar Sidonis, my teammate from Akuze? The _Cerberus_ scientist?"

"Yeah..." Shepard recalled that mission. "What about him?"

"Where is he? Where's Dr Wayne?" Garrus fixed her with that hawk-eyed gaze of his.

"In Alliance custody. Where else would he be?" Shepard was confused. _What the hell is he getting at?_

"He's dead, Shepard! That's where he is!" Garrus sneered at her. "He was found dead in his holding cell a month after he was picked up by the Alliance."

"What!?"

Garrus began to pace once again. "I knew there was something wrong that day. I knew there was something suspicious about the way you insisted that he be taken into custody. At that time, I believed you when you said that we needed him to help investigate Cerberus. I was a fool."

"The real reason you prevented Sidonis and me from killing him was because you wanted to make sure he really _was_ the last loose end. I bet your Cerberus friends in the Alliance must have questioned him to find out everything they could about his research. Then they killed him to ensure he wouldn't implicate anyone else."

"With Wayne _conveniently_ dead, the Alliance refused to investigate Sidonis' claims. They closed the case due to lack of evidence, saying they simply couldn't take the tall claims of a rambling turian at face value." He clenched his fists in rage. "My team never got the justice they deserved! And that's all thanks to _you_ , Shepard!"

"Are you even listening to yourself? You're being paranoid, Garrus!" Shepard was truly horrified to hear that things had gone so badly, but to think that he was accusing her of being a Cerberus agent in the Alliance?

"Am I?" he challenged her. "Or am I simply seeing things the way they are; the way I should have seen them. Maybe I was blinded all along by my hero-worship? Maybe I should have suspected you from the very beginning, instead of following your orders unquestioningly like everyone else?"

"I'm not a Cerberus spy!" Shepard was getting angry now.

"Forgive me if I decide not to take your word for it," he said bitingly. "Especially considering that every time you get involved with Cerberus, people just seem to wind up dead."

"What are you...?"

"Remember Admiral Kahoku?" He was on a roll now. "He asked you to run a small errand for him, only to find out that his men met the same fate as mine did on Akuze. He starts investigating Cerberus and goes into hiding, informing only you of all the facts. Then three weeks later we find his body on an abandoned base on Binthu. Kind of convenient, don't you think?"

"Are you implying that I...?"

"You're damn right I am!" he shouted at her. "Every time you get involved with something related to Cerberus, people _die_! Do you really expect me to believe that all of this was just one big _coincidence_?"

"Yes! Yes, you're supposed to believe that! You're supposed to believe _me_ , you turian bastard!" Shepard was beyond livid now. She couldn't believe that Garrus of all people was saying these things to her. She took an angry step forward, intending to beat some sense into his scaly head...

...only to hear the loud noises of several charged weapons pointing at her from all sides.

"I would advise against it, Shepard," his voice was deadly calm. "If you think my people will hesitate to put you down, think again."

Shepard took in her surroundings with unease. They were in a classic standoff, with Miranda and Jacob also having drawn their weapons, their bodies glowing brightly with barely restrained biotics.

Had this been just any ordinary bunch of mercs, even with four-to-one odds, Shepard wouldn't have been worried. But a single glance was enough to tell her that Garrus' team weren't a bunch of amateurs playing mercenary; they were professionals. She was sure that at least half of them had had some kind of Special Forces training.

Even if, by some miracle, they managed to beat all of them, there was still Garrus himself to contend with. It was plain to her that he wasn't the same simple-minded C-Sec officer she had picked up on the Citadel all those years ago. No, Omega had changed Garrus Vakarian. The way he moved, the way he carried himself now, reminded her of some of the veteran N7 marines she'd served with. No way was he going down easily in a fight.

Plus, he had the added advantage of fighting on familiar territory. It certainly explained how he was able to stand before her so confidently, his rifle still dangling at his side, not even looking slightly fazed by the threat of violence before him.

She shook her head violently. _Why am I even thinking all this? This is_ _ **Garrus**_ _, dammit! I came here to recruit him, not take him down._

She took a deep breath. "Garrus, please. None of that is true. I'm not with Cerberus because I _want_ to, it's because I've got no choice." She paused, silently beseeching him to trust her. "You know me. You know I'd only do this for the right reasons!"

"I wish I could believe that, Shepard. I really do." To his credit, he genuinely sounded regretful. "But all the evidence is against you. You can't expect me to take your word for it, not in the face of all these facts, not when your own record is against you."

Shepard bowed her head in defeat. "So...this is goodbye, then?"

He merely looked at her for a second. "Yes, I guess it is." He raised his hand and his team quickly stood down.

"For old times' sake, I'm going to let you walk away from here, Shepard." His bright blue eyes gazed into her own. There was no warmth there. "But the next time we meet, if you're still working for Cerberus..." he trailed off, the unspoken threat hanging in the air.

Shepard met his gaze stonily. "When that happens, Garrus, may the best man win."

He nodded at her. For a moment the two former friends merely stared at each other, all too aware of the unbridgeable gap between them, the deep chasm that nothing could repair...

Then Shepard turned around and walked away, doing her best to ignore the gaping hole in her heart.

For the first time in a very long time, she truly felt alone in the galaxy.

* * *

 **AN: What do you guys think? Should I leave this as a one-shot, or turn it into a story?  
**


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